THE DISSOLVING CORPORATION

Contemporary Architecture and

Corporate Identity in Finland

Peter MacKeith

Publisher: Taloustieto Oy

Cover: Antti Eklund

Printing: Yliopistopaino 2005

ISBN 951-628-424-8

www.eva.fiEVA´s homepage contains reports, articles and

other material in Finnish and in English.

PREFACE

In the past few years, the Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA hastreated the issues of creativity and business-culture interaction withgrowing interest. This report is an extension of the June, 2004 EVAconference on “Creativity through Competitiveness” and is publishedin co-operation with the Creative Finland Association. Entertaining asubject quite different from past EVA report themes, this essay offersone perspective on the state of Finnish corporate architecture withinthe more general context of corporate management practices and ar-chitectural innovations.

In this report, Professor Peter MacKeith argues that in the contempora-ry moment of global, open-market economies, Finnish architecture isat a critical juncture. This condition is reflected precisely in recentheadquarters architecture produced by Finnish corporations. Whereas ahundred years ago corporate headquarters were central elements of thesurrounding cultural and urban environment, expressing values of theemerging national consciousness, today’s Finnish corporate headquar-ters have adopted a style of neutrality and anonymity, and situatedthemselves outside of the public realm. Professor MacKeith calls for acorporate architecture that takes into account issues of sustainable de-velopment and the corporation’s relationship to the society, culture andcivic realm in which it is physically situated.

Along with the desired image and values communicated by a building’sform to the outside world, corporate office planning has also adoptednew objectives. The author strongly questions whether open-plan,glass-walled working environments truly result in increased creativity,positive encounters and productivity – or whether this is simply a caseof parallel rhetoric in management and architectural ambitions.

Nevertheless, Professor MacKeith is hopeful: he believes that thanks toits highly educated, design- and environment-conscious society, Fin-land possesses the means to demonstrate the benefits of “a design cul-ture”. Superseding the structures and values of the information society,such a culture has great potential for being the pioneer of original aswell as culturally and environmentally sustainable corporate architectu-re.

We sincerely hope that this report will provide interesting reading foramateurs of architecture, and offer new perspectives to experts as well.We shall emphasize that the views expressed are the author’s. We alsowish to give our warmest thanks to all those that assisted in the processof creating this report, as well as the project’s coordinator Kati Heikin-heimo.

Helsinki on August 3, 2005

Risto E.J. Penttilä Krister AhlströmDirector Chairman of the BoardEVA Creative Finland Association

Pentti VartiaManaging DirectorEVA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project was initiated on the basis of conversations on architecture,economics and culture in Finland over the last ten years with Dr. RistoE.J. Penttilä, the Director of EVA. I am grateful to Dr. Penttilä and toEVA for the opportunity to work as an EVA Research Fellow, outsideof the conventional boundaries of architectural criticism and in the in-terest of a broader audience. Dr. Penttilä has been both a steadfast sup-porter and provocative interlocutor throughout the process. I am furt-her grateful to Creative Finland Association for their support of thispublication.

Within EVA, the project has been energetically guided and facilitatedby Kati Heikinheimo; the essay in particular owes much to herthoughtful editing. The essay is an expanded version of a lecture entit-led “Architecture, Incorporated”, originally given as part of EVA’s June,2004 symposium on “Creativity through Competitiveness.”

In Helsinki, I have benefited from discussions with Jaakko Tapaninen,Juha-Pekka Raeste, Trevor Harris, Mikko Heikkinen, Kimmo Friman,Juha Ilonen, Jouni Kaipia, and Juhani Pallasmaa. Petteri Kummanen ofthe Museum of Finnish Architecture assisted with image research.

The School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis(USA) has also provided crucial support. Dean Cynthia Weese, in parti-cular, provided both faculty leave-time and development funds, as wellas moral support. Faculty members Zeuler Lima, Eric Mumford, andElysse Newman contributed key commentary and editorial advice.Graduate research assistants Greg Murphy, Elizabeth Demler, BrianNewman, Beth Priest, and Aaron Robin worked tirelessly to developinformation sources and images.

My thanks to all.

St. Louis, Missouri, USA and Helsinki, FinlandAugust 3, 2005

Peter MacKeithAssociate Dean and Associate ProfessorSchool of ArchitectureWashington University in St. Louis

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1 PRECIS

2 PRELUDE: QUANTITIES AND QUALITIES

2.1 Competitive, Transparent, Creative

2.2 The Projection of Value

3 PARABLE – FROM GRANITE TO GLASS

3.1 Elisa’s Journey

3.2 City of Stone, City of Glass

3.3 Two Corporate Faces

4 POLITICAL ECONOMY, INCORPORATED

4.1 A Restless Economy

4.2 The Corporate Mantra: Creativity, Innovation,Flexibility

4.3 Less Is Less

4.4 The Corporate Architectural Equations

5 DISSOLUTIONS: THE DISSOLVINGCORPORATION, THE DISSOLVING CITY

5.1 A Corporate Survey: Cocoons, Campuses andGlass Boxes

5.2 Accelerated Mobility, Building to Sub-let

5.3 Architecture’s Loss of Identity

6 THE CORPORATE CHALLENGE

6.1 The Modern Dynamic

6.2 Finnish Opportunities

6.3 Conclusion: From Information Society toDesign Culture

REFERENCES AND ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

CONTENT

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“There has been a wholesale reinvention of the cultural perception of business andcapitalism. Business, particularly business associated with the new technologies, isnow seen as the embodiment of modernity.”

Will Hutton, Anthony Giddens: “Global Capitalism”1

“The great ‘Modern Project’ is still part of Finland’s cultural heritage [...] In a coun-try where only one building in eight is over sixty years old, Modernism is a tradi-tion.”

Riitta Nikula: “Architecture and Landscape: The Building of Finland”2

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1 PRECISThe turn of the 21st century in Finland has seen the rise of an informa-tion technology fueled domestic economy, one with global reach, aswell as the construction of a number of visible corporate headquartersand research and development facilities. At the same time, the recentidentification of Finland as a world leader in “creativity”3 links thecountry’s economic vitality to creative factors of talent, technology andtolerance. This convergence of business, creativity and design at its larg-est scale offers an opportunity to evaluate the image of Finnish businessprojected by its architecture, and to set that evaluation into the largercontext of contemporary practice.

Throughout the 20th century, modern architecture and design wereclosely identified with the cultural identity of Finland. By extension,Finnish business practices often sought to cultivate thoughtful designand well-made architecture, as both an indication of economic vitality

HPY Building,Helsinki.

Pohjola Insurance Building,Helsinki.

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Sanoma House, Helsinki.

Enso-Gutzeit Headquarters,Helsinki.

SOK,Helsinki.

and as a representation of corporate values. Lars Sonck’s HPY Buildingand Gesellius, Lindgren and Saarinen’s Pohjola Insurance Building formcentury-old reference points in Helsinki’s city center; the SOK coop-erative built a strong identity through modernist buildings in the

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1930s and 40s; and Alvar Aalto’s Enso-Gutzeit Headquarters is a prom-inent, if still controversial, landmark in Helsinki’s South Harbor. Two re-cent contemporary examples are Pekka Helin’s Nokia House andSARC’s Sanoma House.

Expanding upon these local precedents The Dissolving Corporationexamines and critiques the most public faces of the corporate world:the architectural designs of corporate headquarters, in Finland and be-yond.

The three central messages of this essay are first cautionary, then realis-tic, and finally hopeful:

1) Finnish business development, Finnish design and Finnish crea-tivity are inextricably linked, and must be simultaneously exam-ined, critiqued and enhanced. The concept of “the creativeworkplace” can be examined effectively in Finland’s smaller-scaledeconomy, given its highly-educated and highly design-consciousculture.

2) Finland’s development from a closed society to an open marketeconomy is reflected in Finnish architecture and urban design – forbetter and for worse. One cannot examine the architecture of a cul-ture without examining the economic forces that produce it.

3) Finland possesses the creative means to demonstrate design, ar-chitecture, and urban design that reflects both a political and an eth-

Keilaniemi, Espoo.

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ical economy: a sustainable, urbane, dignified culture of knowledgeand design.

The initial case study subjects for this inquiry consisted of examples ofcontemporary corporate headquarters architecture – those of Nokiaand Sanoma in Finland; Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Ford and USA Today inthe United States; Nike-Europe in the Netherlands; Volkswagen inGermany; and Telenor in Norway. These examples were examined onthe basis of both business characteristics (type of product or service,scope of operations, location of facilities, among them) and architectur-al determinants (design team, design ambitions, and attitudes towardsissues of site, materials, tectonics, sustainability, and workplace design).

Architecture possesses a strong potential for symbolic representation, aswell as for forming stimulating working environments. Equally, anycorporation desires strengthened public relations and enhanced pro-ductivity. The corporate headquarters fuses these ambitions into both aworkplace and an image. On these terms, the corporation’s representedcharacter in Finland and beyond is increasingly problematic.

Despite the historical co-dependency between architecture and thecorporation in the 20th century, a detailed, critical survey of that rela-tionship has not yet been attempted.a The tower and the office, as real-ized in the corporate headquarters pose complex issues of intention,patronage, technology, and capitalist economics. An analogous history,however, can be found in the survey of the parallel modern buildingtype, the factory. Architectural critic Gillian Darley4 has summarizedthe current state of that building type thus:

“In its own way the age of Information Technology is as hungry for gadgets as wasthe era of the Industrial Revolution.[…] The profiled steel and glass paneled shedsthat typify the anonymity and slickness of nameless industrial-scale operations,whether chip assembly or car plants, call centres, or research and development labo-ratories for biotech or electronics multinationals, form the invisible background toour lives. The imagery of the modern factory – however we define it – is essentiallyhermetic, with no references given or even hinted at. The journey from thosebelching furnaces reflected in the River Severn at Coalbrookdale that provokedsuch wonder and fear to this curious anomie has been traveled at breakneck speed.Where next?”

a What does exist are numerous pictorial surveys of contemporary office design; a recent exam-ple is that of Ana G. Cañizares, editor: “Offices DesignSource“. New York, 2004: Harper Design andLOFT Publications.

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Hermetic, self-sufficient, a curious anomie? Where next, indeed, for acorporate architecture in Finland in the age of information technologyand the global corporation?

Arkkitehti-lehti (the Finnish Architectural Review) has expressed thisconcern for Finnish architects over the last five years by addressing theissues of office design, glass as the contemporary material, and the ur-ban design implications of an open market economy. One distressedconclusion was expressed by architect Trevor Harris5, the Professor ofUrban Planning at the Helsinki University of Technology, as he regard-ed recent corporate design at the edge of Helsinki:

“[...] I can’t help but wonder what demonic Miesian figure is behind this strangelyhypnotic assemblage of glass giants? Like the sentinels of Easter Island they standsilent and uncommunicative, reflecting themselves and their neighbors like imagesfrom some funfair’s House of Mirrors, grey-painted steel and glass panels arrangedin a reinterpretation of some 1960s curtain wall manufacturer’s catalogue [...] Thechallenge of building on such a monumental shoreline, next door to the FortumCompany’s concrete skyscraper [...] seems to have confused our heroes temporarily.Shall we go up or down? In or out? Transparent or solid? “

Professor Harris identifies an evident gap between the interests of thecorporation and the interests of the civic polity, a gap in ambition thatresults in an equally evident banality:

“We’ve seen this scenario so many times before in Frankfurt, London, L.A. andKuala Lumpur. But whatever made us think Finland would escape? [...] Given morereasonable timetables, enlightened clients, a less one-sided room programme and astronger input by the city-planners, I have no doubt that some of the gifted designteams involved would have been capable of producing a richer and more sympa-thetic totality. Keilalahti could have become a significant example of collaborationbetween Capital and Commune. Now it is a silent collection of over-cool heroes,irresolute and defiant, which could have emerged anywhere, in any culture, besideany motorway.”

These concerns are symptomatic of much architecture around theworld. In the last decade, corporations have increasingly emphasizedthe transparency and flexibility of their operations. Almost reflexively,translucent, glass-sheathed corporate designs have emerged to symbol-ize this commitment. Simultaneously, while there has been a necessarycall for the material application of ecological sensibilities in all types ofdesign, these values have now become nearly a norm in corporatestrategy and marketing.

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Lastly, much of the history of corporate architecture is defined by a pa-rade of monuments – tall, proud buildings marking a city skyline, theircommerce-driven spires succeeding those of the cathedral or temple.Many of these corporate landmarks have effectively “branded” a city,providing a globally recognized, touristic ideogram for postcards and T-shirts. While calls for such a signature to the Helsinki skyline have beenheard, this essay maintains that such ambitions – corporate and archi-tectural – are misplaced. The demonstrable strengths of a Finnishknowledge culture, and of a Finnish design culture, lead away fromsuch singular monumentality. These strengths instead lead towards an“archipelago” of more diverse, more finely-scaled, more sustainably-principled designsb.

b For insight into this question, see architect Pasi Kolhonen’s 1999 diploma work for the Depart-ment of Architecture, Helsinki University of Technology, entitled “Mainoskatko Kaupunkikuvassa:kaupallisen kultuurin vaikutuksia julkiseen tilaan ja arkkitehtuuriin (Commercial Break in the Cit-yscape: the effects of commercial culture on public space and architecture)”, submitted May 3,1999.

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2 PRELUDE:QUANTITIES ANDQUALITIESThe stereotypical image of Finland in the past has been that of a north-ern land of forests and lakes, churches and saunas, midnight suns andwinter darkness, Sibelius and Aalto, Fiskars scissors and Marimekkodresses. But the ideal information society and a paragon of corporatecompetitiveness?

2.1 COMPETITIVE, TRANSPARENT,CREATIVE

The qualitative image of the Finnish economy and the nation’s businesspractices has never been quantifiably stronger than it is for the year2004-2005. Objective evidence of this assertion is immediately at handto any citizen and visitor. “Finland Remains the World’s Most Compet-itive Country,” announces the December 2004 issue of the HelsinkiCity Information Office Newsletter6, seeking to convert this competi-tive status into a source of cultural and urban magnetism.

“For the second consecutive year, Finland tops the ranking in The Glo-bal Competitiveness Report 2004-2005, released by the World Eco-nomic Forum in October 2004,” the information broadsheetelaborates, “Finland is number one in the Growth Competitiveness In-dex rankings and holds this position for the third time in the past fouryears. The World Economic Forum says that Finland is well managed atthe macroeconomic level, but it also scores very high in those measuresthat assess the quality of its public institutions. Furthermore, the Finn-ish private sector shows a high proclivity for adopting new technolo-gies and nurturing a culture of innovation (italics by author).”

Coincident with this positioning, Finland achieved a rare double lastyear in worldwide rankings by also remaining “the least corrupt coun-try in the world, according to the annual corruption index compiled

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by Transparency International [TI]”. TI does not focus explicitly uponthe converse of its indexing method – estimating the corruption of theprivate sector – but its criteria does suggest a relationship between theapparent “transparency” of the political activities of public office hold-ers and an apparent “transparency” of the economic activities of privateindividuals or corporate entities. Implicit in this indexing of “transpar-ency” is a semantic equivalence of “incorruptibility” – in essence, thequalities of honesty, openness, and integrity – with both a desired sen-sory effect of unimpeded vision and a consequent material sensibilityof glass-like character.

In a further manifestation of Finland’s indexing power, the 2003 assess-ment of knowledge bases in European urban regions7 gave Helsinki thehighest index rating – over those of Oslo, Stockholm, Munich, and Par-is. Helsinki’s index rating is, in fact, synonymous with that of the prov-ince of Southern Finland. The analysis implicitly depicts a primaryEuropean urban region of well-educated “white-collar” employees pre-dominantly employed in technological R & D activities.

In their mathematical determinations, these qualifiers of the Finnisheconomic and business character – competitive, transparent, technicallyknowledgeable and technologically innovative – might well remainextremely abstract and distant. The necessity of perceiving this charac-ter in terms other than straightforward economic and financial quanti-fications is arguable, perhaps, in strictly defined and constructedcapitalist societies. Stronger currency values, stronger interest rates,higher and more stable employment, greater market presence: one setof mathematical determinants is appropriately validated by another,and “the quality of life,” as assessed in economic terms, is understood tobe measurably “better.”

Yet to understand quality of life through sheer economic and quantita-tive terms is to limit the dimensions of our experience, restrict themeans of our expression, and bound our active engagement in theworld. Design Forum Finland’s declaration of 2005 as the Year ofFinnish Design emphatically asserts that Finland – as a society, as a cul-ture, and as a nation - demonstrably allies “design” with both economicand societal health: “The theme year stems from the awareness that de-sign plays a key role in Finnish corporate and national competitiveness,next to technological competence. Design is also crucial in promoting

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and maintaining a healthy society (italics by author).” Significantly, theimportance of design and architecture as recognized components ofthe quality of life and of national character has been codified recentlyin separate policy statements by the Finnish Council of State and theFinnish Parliament (specifically the Finnish Government’s ArchitecturalPolicy Program of 1998 and the Land Use and Building Act of 1999).

The agenda announced by the Design Forum includes events and pres-entations from a broad range of educational institutions, and state, pro-vincial, and municipal authorities. The explicit and expansiveattachment of Finnish design quality to Finnish economic health, andby further extension, to societal health, is notable, denoting simultane-ously the economic (not solely aesthetic) benefits of “good design,”and suggesting an intrinsic identifiable Finnish character to that designquality.

2.2 THE PROJECTION OF VALUE

The Design Forum identifications are not, in and of themselves, author-itative. But an extensive material and even popular history in Finlandattests to the constructed relationships between the nation’s culture andits artistic expressions. Finland’s evolving political, economic, and socialambitions as well as its character can be viewed through the tangibleexpressions of its visual, literary and performing arts, alongside of thoseachieved in design and architecture. Indeed, it could be asserted thatFinland presents a prototypical example of what the architectural theo-rist Dana Cuff has termed “a design economy”.

Architecture has been defined as “a practice concerned simultaneouslywith both image production and building production”8. The coinci-dence of these modes of production resonates most powerfully in Fin-land, given the nation’s emergence in cultural, political, and economicterms in last century. This 100-year period of identity developmentprecisely aligns with the appearance of an evolving understanding of“modernity” in the arts and architecture.

The contemporary manifestation of these relationships – in particularregard to those constructed through architecture for the projection of

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Finnish economic and business vitality – pose intriguing questions forboth architecture and the private sector in Finland:

How is the contemporary Finnish business identity, so quantifiably ad-vanced, represented in architecture?

How are qualitative evaluations of the Finnish business character –competitive, incorruptible, proficient, and innovative – rendered ex-plicit and tangible for all to view and comprehend?

How is the contemporary Finnish workplace truly “creative”?

Can there be a corporate value to the claim of an authentic “Finnish”design?

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3 PARABLE: FROMGRANITE TO GLASSThe contemporary representation of corporate character in architec-ture runs parallel to issues of urban design and architecture’s symbolicvalue. The departure of the Elisa Corporation from its century-oldgranite headquarters in the center of Helsinki for suburban leased spac-es in September, 2003, illustrates a historical shift in the relationshipbetween corporations, architecture, and society. Together with the de-velopment of Nokia’s headquarters in 1999, the architectural choices ofthe two telecommunications companies tell a fascinating story.

3.1 ELISA’S JOURNEY

Elisa is the “re-branded”, feminine appellation of what was the centu-ry-old Helsinki Telephone Company (HPY in its Finnish acronym,founded in 1891). Under the leadership of its new director Veli-MattiMattila, the company has moved vigorously to re-position itself com-petitively in the intense Finnish telecommunications market. Assuminghis post in July, 2003, Mattila soon announced the departure of Elisa’stop management from its iconic, 1903 Lars Sonck -designed “granitecastle”.

No longer representative of Elisa’s contemporary corporate ambitions,except for its desirable (and financially valuable) central capital loca-tion, the HPY building would be left behind for leased space on thecity periphery. In an interview with the Helsingin Sanomat’s Juha-Pekka Raeste9, Mattila averred that “although traditions are important,a company must work each day to deserve its own future”. Therefore,this building of “useless sensibilities” as he described it, could not bethe future of the brand, no matter its historical and cultural signifi-cance.

In fact, Elisa’s departure from its iconic headquarters building concrete-ly postulates a contemporary business maxim: the brand is both bigger,

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and better, than any corporate tradition, than any permanent building,and than any city limit.

Mattila’s characterization of Sonck’s headquarters design neatly sum-marizes the tensions of building and image production. As described inHelsinki Jugendstil Architecture 1895-191510, Sonck’s design (the firstin a long series of designs as HPY’s architect), was built in a period “ofincensed nationalistic feelings, when romanticism [in architecture] wasat its height in castle forms and granite construction.” The HPY build-ing is “a massive stone tower-wall expression,” powerfully crowning atopological high point in the Helsinki center with its picturesquemassing, rough-hewn granite blocks, and detailed ornamental devicesrepresentative of the Finnish forest.

HPY Building, Helsinki.

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Here, it is important to note the strategic employment of an architec-tural language of mass, weight, density, and organic detail to encloseand represent what was at the time a new, radical, (inorganic) technolo-gy for the near-invisible transmission of disembodied voices.

At the time of the HPY building’s construction, Sonck was workingwithin the larger context of an emergent, distinctively Finnish con-sciousness of strength, independence and self-reliance. The tension be-tween the all-too-apparent massiveness of the building and the utterweightlessness of its technological purposes was noted with prescienceby K. S. Kallio11 in his 1907 review: “The aim for an effect of strength isespecially visible in the Helsinki Telephone Company Building. Itsrough granite wall surfaces, into which windows are gouged like open-ings to caves, create a very strange and archaic feeling for a modern tel-ephone exchange.” The “strange and archaic feeling” of 1907 resounds,albeit altered by the shifting corporate winds, in Mr. Mattila’s “uselesssensibilities” of 2003.

3.2 CITY OF STONE, CITY OF GLASS

Sonck was certainly not alone in these Finnish efforts to reify the ab-stract and invisible elements of commerce into stone and to impressupon those surfaces a concentration of narrative details drawn from thenatural world. In 1901, only blocks away in the Helsinki center, northacross the Esplanade, the partnetship of Eliel Saarinen, Hermann Ges-ellius and Armas Lindgren had completed the Pohjola Insurance Build-ing. The Pohjola design, achieved simultaneously with the partnership’sdesigns for the 1900 Finnish Pavilion at the Universal Exposition inParis, represents “the vigor of National Romanticism [in that] eachmaterial speaks its own natural, characteristic language, and that in or-namentation only motives from the Finnish flora and fauna are used[…]”. Additionally, in 1904 the Helsingin Sanomat began publicationfrom stone-clad properties and presses on Ludviginkatu. By 1905, KarlLindahl and Valter Thomé had begun their designs for the Otava Pub-lishing Company just west of the Esplanade, a sequence of granite-faced structures for the editing, printing, and sales of books under theOtava imprimatur.12

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Together with other public designs for theaters, museums, transporta-tion stations and residential housing, these commercial buildings out-line the more general development of the Helsinki city centerthroughout the 1890s and across into the new century. Helsinki devel-oped as a coherent “city of stone,” one of permanently constructedstructures, contextually related to each other by adjacency, similar scale,dense material and ornamental similarity. These buildings were pos-sessed with a more general ambition to represent both their individualidentities and that of the developing cultural identity.

The swiftly emerging 20th century commercial culture engaged manyarchitects worldwide. Simultaneously, for instance, the American LouisSullivan was also designing for the modern, technological, increasinglycommercialized world, as well as for the emerging sense of an Ameri-can identity. Sullivan’s observations were constructed in the guise of“tall” office buildings and department stores (the Wainwright Buildingin St. Louis, the Carson-Pirie-Scott Store in Chicago) and then in a se-ries of more modestly-scaled banks throughout the American Midwest

Pohjola Headquartes, Helsinki.

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(the National Farmer’s Bank in Owwatonna, Minnesota (1907), for ex-ample).

For these architects, the creative search was for the means to imbue theimperatives of efficient management organization, retail profit maximi-zation, and financial instrument administration with the humane char-acteristics of monumentality and individuality, dignity and security. Allthe while, a knowing architect – and their corporate patrons – couldsense that the typewriter, the telephone, and the automobile, alongwith the elevator, manufactured float glass, the steel frame and rein-forced concrete construction were advancing technological influences.

Their struggle was for an architectural language responsive to the com-mercial and technological imperatives, yet also still embodying a par-ticularly national identity. These architects believed that thisarchitectural language should express more of the agrarian or forestsensibilities of the nation and less of the abstractions of commerce ortechnology.

However, in 1900 the waves of a more hard-headed architectural mod-ernism were already washing upon Finland’s shores. Elisa’s managementtoday might well have been (and can still be) inspired by the passionateand far-seeing critiques of architects Gustaf Strengell and Sigurd Frost-erus. In the wake of the controversial 1904 competition for the Helsin-ki Railway Station (a commission awarded to Saarinen, Gesellius, andLindgren), Strengell and Frosterus published a review of Finnish archi-tecture entitled “Architecture: A Challenge”. Rejecting the romanticideals of a forest-based culture and architectural language, their critiqueof Finnish architecture was radical, direct, and unsentimental:

“Architecture is not (or not only) an art of arbitrary fantasy, it is also an art of calcu-lating reason [...] Modern commercial life and modern people have strictly speakingvery little to do with wilderness romanticism and fairy-tale twilight [...] the architectof the future has to learn about the transatlantic steamship and the electric tram,the racing car and the automobile, American office interiors and English lavatories[...] Leading motives for the architecture of the future: the most rational use of ma-terials, economy of materials, and unscrupulous concentration of power. A buildingis no longer a picturesque silhouette, a dead, static, imposing mass, but a living or-ganism, corresponding to a given purpose, adapted to circumstances.” 13

Strengell and Frosterus bring “modern commercial life” and “modernpeople” to the forefront of consideration, advocating precise terms of

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“concentration of power” and “rational use of materials” for the pro-duction of an architecture imagined as a purposeful and adaptive “liv-ing organism”. All in all, they dictate a most business-like manner ofproducing architecture, harnessing techniques of conception to tech-nological methods for the projection of purpose.

Their climactic, ultimate demand for “AN IRON AND BRAIN” ar-chitecture of rationality, technique, and new materials and technologies,was extended to include “AN IRON AND BRAIN ARCHITEC-TURE FOR BUSINESS PALACES (capital letters theirs),” describ-ing to our ears a form of architecture we know well today, aproto-modernist brand of corporate architecture. “I remember,” saysStrengell, “a newspaper building in Amsterdam. It was a simple con-struction without any ornamentation, defiantly harsh, even. But thehuge, reflecting-glass windows, making the façade into a single open-ing, were almost geometrically even on the surface, and you could haveseen the head of pin in the farthest corners of the rooms. Without anykind of embellishment this façade gave an impression of tremendouspower. It was like a giant-scale projector through which pictures ofevents all over the world were hurled out every day. Its character wasobtained by the simplest of means, and though ‘aesthetically’ it wasperhaps not beautiful, because of its honesty the building was neverthe-less ethically (italics by author) beautiful.” (ibid.)

At the time, here was architectural criticism well ahead of Finnish cor-porate ambition and architectural practice, almost prescribing the de-sign of Sanoma House. Strengell and Frosterus eerily anticipate theevident “city of glass” of contemporary Helsinki, both public and pri-vate. A translucent Sanoma House, a glowing Kiasma, a sleek HolidayInn and Scandia Hotel, the vitrines of the Kamppi commercial plaza,and the reflective extension to the House of Parliament increasinglycharacterize the city center of the 21st century. On the swiftly growingurban perimeter, the horizon is now outlined by the monochromaticdevelopment of the Ruoholahti business district, and the prismaticforms of Nokia House, Kone Headquarters, and Radiolinja Headquar-ters.

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3.3 TWO CORPORATE FACES

A one hundred year span leaps over numerous strains of developmentin Finnish and world architecture, but the comparison of two head-quarters buildings separated by a century but no more than ten kilom-eters remains available to both ironist and idealist.

The massive, dense, granite-block pedimented entrance of Sonck’s1903 HPY building in the center of Helsinki, embedded in the city’spublic spaces, stands in expressive comparison to the transparent, light-ly-structured, glass-faceted, and flat-canopied entrance of Pekka Helin’s1998 Nokia House at the city’s periphery, an object building boundedby its own property.

Nokia House, Espoo.

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At this juncture in time, the contrasts between HPY and Nokia are in-structive. The two corporate faces present starkly different values: be-tween their material and structural sensibilities, their corporateproducts and presence, their central and peripheral urban locations,their ornamental devices and technological displays. The contrastshighlight the relative values of brands over buildings, of economic de-cisions and civic ambitions. The two buildings demonstrate a set ofcritical studies in architecture, political economy, culture, and the ethicsof building amidst the increasingly fluid pressures of a capitalist globaleconomy.

Setting aside the difficulties of evaluating the current moment on thesame terms as the historicized one, suffice it to say that HPY exempli-fies a coherent moment in architectural and cultural development. Theera of 1905 was as attached to commercial agendas of image produc-tion as to those of national consciousness. HPY’s image is one identi-fied by material (granite), by compositional technique of form (thepicturesque), by ornamental agenda (the literal representation of natureand the The Kalevala), and by advocacy of a coherent urban fabric ofsimilar buildings, both private and public, constructing a durable citycenter of civic integrity. Further, the discarding of the HPY buildingby its new owners – so calculating in their re-branding – is symbolic ofthe fluidity of corporate ambition and image projection.

By contrast, Nokia House may be, at best, only anecdotal or provisionalas a representative of a similar coherency in architectural and commer-cial imagery at this end of the century. The expressed architectural val-ues of Nokia’s headquarters can be identified by its materiality (glass),by compositional technique of form (the prismatic), and perhaps bydetailing strategies (the absence of external referents, natural or other-wise, and scale-giving elements). Distressingly, the values can also beidentified by the building’s clear detachment from the public space ofthe city center.

In 1903, it was possible and desirable for the HPY building to repre-sent corporate ambitions as well as national aspirations through a stable,dense presence in the civic realm of the city. In 2004, is it similarlypossible – or even desirable – for the same to be said of Nokia House?

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4 POLITICALECONOMY,INCORPORATEDThe comparison between HPY and Nokia House exemplifies thegradual disappearance of specific and durable cultural referents fromcontemporary corporate architecture. As well, the contrast highlightsthe difficulties of obtaining a substantial, specific architectural languagewithin the larger realm of a dynamic world market economy.

4.1 A RESTLESS ECONOMY

According to sociologist Richard Sennett14, the architecture of the cityand the civic realm are reflections of the forces presiding in a politicaleconomy, and this relationship can be perceived in distinct terms atboth ends of the 20th century.

Sennett’s observations repeatedly employ the concept of “embodi-ment” as a method of sociological and architectural critique, a conceptparalleled by that of “incorporation” in business terms. His focus exam-ines the successive conversions of economic activity into incorporatedfinancial entities, then into tangible architecture, and ultimately, intothe inhabited civic realm at municipal and national scales.

Sennett illustrates his argument by contrasting the expanding econo-my of 19th century Bismarckian Germany to that of the modern globaleconomy. In the former, he identifies an evident “rigidity” of the politi-cal economy reified into material form: “[...] you would only have tolook at the insurance companies, banks, and railroad corporationshoused in structures meant to resemble Egyptian temples or Renais-sance palaces to see the realization of the desire for economic stabilityin stone.” The European and American city of 1900 “embodied” thedialectical desire for a stable, rigid economic order, even as immensewaves of immigrants diversified its population and opened “the prom-ise of freedom” within that same civic realm. Although the Helsinki of

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1900 was less affected by immigration, the intention to realize eco-nomic stability in the guise of stone is readily apparent in its city cent-er.

By contrast, Sennett elaborates, in the global city of 2000 the dialecticof “flexibility and indifference” predominates. He describes a contem-porary contradiction: “We now have cities of globally mobile corpora-tions, flexible workers, a dynamic capitalism bent on erasing routine.Paradoxically, in the city [of 2000], this restless economy produces po-litical disengagements, a standardization of the physical realm, newpressures to withdraw into the private sphere.”

For Sennett, this “restless economy” is embodied architecturally in theform of neutralized environments. The contemporary city of corporatearchitecture is constructed of standardized elements, homogeneous intheir glass-enclosures, planned for maximum flexibility, and insured forlimited time periods. This architecture “need(s) the uniformity, thetransparency, of money. This is why the style elements of new econo-my buildings become what [architecture critic] Ada Louise Huxtablecalls ‘skin architecture,’ the surface of the building dolled-up with de-sign, its innards ever-more neutral, standard, and capable of instant re-figuration”. This environment, Sennett argues, is in fact founded onimpermanence, on an extreme mobility of both labor and capital. Assuch, the flexible and transparent environment ultimately begets indif-ference to the workplace, to the city, and to the civic realm at large.

Although Sennett does not precisely illustrate this environment, Sili-con Valley’s landscape of leased, glass curtain-wall or tilt-up concreteslab construction R&D “parks” constitutes the extreme example. Inthat archetypal IT-driven landscape, the buildings are differentiatedonly by their corporate signage, and employee turnover occurs everyeight months on average.

But Sennett’s critique also opens a window onto more typical contem-porary references, available on our own streets and in our own cities.c

Rather than the segregated, translucent corporate architecture, it is the

c For further commentary on the architecture of Silicon Valley and its represented values, seeMitchell Schwartzer: “Beyond the Valley of Silicon Architecture,” Harvard Design Magazine, Win-ter/Spring 1999.

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density and diversity of the Helsinki city center that are precisely theconditions in which innovation and creative engagement thrive. AsJohn Thackara, former director of the Netherlands Design Institute,writes:

“The penetration of systems-based design into public space is also bad for the bodypolitic. Innovation thrives in conditions of diversity, not efficiency, and spaces de-signed for a single function – be it movement, sport, entertainment, or culture – areunlikely to foster innovation. This is why old-style cities remain unmatched as sitesof creativity: Diverse peoples and cultures are crammed into them in a most under-signed manner. Monofunctional zones, gated communities, and themed districts allexclude the opportunity for surprise encounter and combination – the urbanequivalent of the mutation and adaptation that determines evolutionary success innature.”15

Sennett’s argument of indifference resulting from flexibility, of course,runs counter to the professed ideals and ambitions of contemporarycorporate management as well as to the intentions of the architects intheir service. Indeed, it would be impossible today to hear, from eitherparty, anything but rhetorical desires for “creativity” or “innovativethinking” to be inspired by the workplace environment and equal de-sires for “productive interaction” and “positive encounters” to occuramong all those working there.

Oracle, Silicon Valley.

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4.2 THE CORPORATE MANTRA:CREATIVITY, INNOVATION, FLEXIBILITY

The recent examples of corporate headquarters design in Finland are asambitious as anywhere else in the world in these desires for “innovativethinking” and “positive encounters”. If the recent competitivenessrankings are to be believed, Finnish architecture is more successful thananywhere else in the world in achieving these ends. But is the relation-ship conclusively demonstrable, or is it simply a case of parallel rheto-ric?

Nokia House, Espoo.

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Architect Pekka Helin16, writing in 1998 of the design intentions forNokia House, provides a near-perfect charter statement of both corpo-rate and architectural intentions: “The leading objective for the designwas to build a working environment for the new millennium thatcould inspire creative thinking and interaction. This has been achievedthrough a repetitive, easily altered spatial unit catering equally well forboth individual and group working. Communication is enhancedthrough transparency between the different areas. [...] A versatile andflexible working environment is achieved through the repetition of thebasic spatial unit [...] in which the number of restricting, fixed struc-tures and installations has been kept to a minimum. [...] The internalcommunication plan within the building encourages positive encoun-ters; informal interaction has been acknowledged as a platform for in-novative thinking.”

Similarly, when addressing Nokia’s desired relationships between inno-vation, design and financial success in his November, 2002 lecture inthe United States, Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila17 relied on the architect’swords to describe corporate intentions. Much the same language ofcorporate ambitions and workplace environment prevails in the archi-

Union Carbide, Headquarters Office Interior, New York.

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tectural descriptions accompanying the Kone Headquarters, SanomaHouse, and the Sonera Headquarters. If anything, the descriptions ofthese buildings possess less glossy rhetoric of “creativity,” and moresimply, the laconic identifications of materials and building systems.

Absent from these assertions, however, is the true need to control de-sign and construction costs. Surely modular planning, and repetitivestructures, systems, and surfaces bear upon both corporate calculationsand the efficiency of architectural production.

With all respect to the financial success emerging from the manage-ment of these Finnish corporate “cultures of innovation,” the designtechniques employed by their Finnish architects are by no means guar-antors of enhanced creative work. The employment of standardized andrepetitive construction, transparent walls and volumes, and parallel-piped object buildings dispersed in peripheral urban locations have notnecessarily led to greater psychological satisfaction in employment orcitizenship – nor, I would argue, in long-term productivity.

Such architectural strategies and tactics are, in fact, simply the defaultsettings of, first, an increasingly historicized “modern” architecture (es-pecially in the immediate post-World War II period) and second, of a

Sonera Headquarters, Helsinki.

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long-developing cost-efficient culture of production. Throughout it all,corporate architecture has been reliant upon an illusory scientificmethodology, woefully misguided urban planning policies, and onwhat architectural historian Kenneth Frampton has defined “the totali-tarianism of technique.” On these terms, corporate architecture in Fin-land is as much in default as anywhere else.

Put simply, the correlation of transparency and flexibility in office plan-ning with creativity and productivity is an illusion. The correlation ofopen-plan, executive-in-the-open, glass-walled environments withopenness, trust, cooperation, and informal brainstorming is an illusion.

To begin with, there is no contemporary equivalent of Frederick Tay-lor’s early 20th century studies on workplace productivity (those thatresulted in the Ford factory line, for instance). Productivity evidence inthe knowledge worker office setting is essentially anecdotal and usuallythe result of the corporation’s own surveys. In fact, the few academicstudies that are emerging contradict the conception of the open officeas the most productive office.

Telenor, Headquarters Office Interior, Oslo.

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As a Fast Company article recently reported, Tom Davenport, professorof management and information technology at Babson College “foundthat three factors determined white-collar performance: managementand organization, information technology and workplace design. Thelast, he says, has a measurable effect – for good and ill. ‘Open offices dolead to more unstructured communication,’ he says. But, ‘those sameoffices can lead to problems of concentration. If you value reflection ordeep thought, it gets tough.’ Call it the attention-deficit office.”18

Equally, another researcher has found evidence to refute the creativeenvironment claimed for the glass-walled box. Dr. Peter Suedfield, ofthe University of British Columbia, has studied extensively creativityand ways to improve it. One method he has examined “is what he callsthe Restricted Environment Stimulation Technique (REST) – puttingpeople into places with no light or outside stimuli. ‘What I’ve found,’he said, ‘is that far from making people crazy, moderate deprivationlowers blood pressure, improves mood, and makes people more crea-tive.’”19

Seductive as the conceptions of the “creative workplace” might be, theshifts in office planning – from traditional wall-and-door offices to the“open plan” landscape of dispersed workstations to the untethered,“wired” employee – are, I would argue, as much due to the corporateneed to maximize return on its spatial investment as they are tochanges in information and communications technologies.

As The New York Times20 reported last year, for instance, Pricewater-houseCoopers has developed a higher employee density in “an updatedoffice design it calls Global Workplace. But the point, naturally, is tosave money, since office space is leased by the square foot. In doing so,PricewaterhouseCoopers is also trying to crack the longtime link inemployees’ minds between space and status […] It is not just cost butrather the changing culture of the workplace that is driving the chang-es in office design, real estate specialists say. Richard McBlaine, presi-dent for strategic consulting at Jones Lang LaSalle [...] said thatcompanies want to encourage interaction and discourage workers fromviewing an office as a status symbol. ‘In the past’, he said, ‘space wasused as a psychic form of compensation. To a large extent, that’schanged.’”

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The true trade-off, or gamble, in this contemporary calculation of hu-man nature is on the qualitative need for both privacy and stability forproductive and satisfying work. These qualities are tangibly (and oftenintentionally) less available in the contemporary open office plan andin the context of the glass-walled corporate design. Current innovationin workplace design and corporate management theory is very dividedat how to proceed. In 2001, the Museum of Modern Art mounted“Workspheres”, an ambitious exhibition devoted to current research inworkplace design. If the intellectual survey of perspectives was wide-ranging and incisive, the display of exemplary office systems was ulti-mately still governed by the limited array of industrial manufacturingprocesses available to furniture and partition makers.21

Research is increasingly attentive to the sociology of the workplace, asadvanced through design. Carnegie-Mellon University now hosts a“Living Laboratory” devoted to the intelligent workplaced. The Nor-wegian telecommunications giant Telenor has taken the sociologicalgambles to their extremes in initiating a new, patented workplace sys-tem of mobile operations for employees in its new suburban Osloheadquarters. Herman Miller, the American furniture manufacturer(and distributor of Artek) is more cautious and skeptical as to the mer-its of such mobility. The dominant force in workplace design is “re-thinking both the cubicle and the office landscape and plans to unveilnew designs in the new future”22.

Any new designs will need to address more than just productivity,however. Indeed, there is a growing sense that the workplace of the in-formation society, of the New Economy, is actually counterproductiveto our individual and societal health, both physically and psychologi-cally. Design researcher John Thackara describes three unhappy checkson the reality of the information society. One, “we are not living in aninformation society – we are living in an information market [in whichthe] economic forces – downsizing, globalization and acceleration – arefragmenting the social fabric.” Two, “work today is bad for our health,both physically and psychologically”. Thackara quotes employee sur-veys in both the European Community and the United States docu-

d See http://www.arc.cmu/cbpd.

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menting this point and summarizes: “All recent studies of workingconditions in the world’s most prosperous regions make similar points:New-economy patterns of work lead to ill health and early mortality.”And three: in the segmented, high-pace, multi-tasking workplace, “wetend to be judged by what we do, not by who we are.” His judgegem-ent: “New economy work leads to loneliness, disconnection, and a lossof identity.”23

Finally, as is often the case, the creative work of an artist can provide themost telling and poignant observation on the state of culture. TheDutch artist Jacqueline Hassink has systematically surveyed contempo-rary corporate spaces through her photographic work “Mindscapes”.The six projects document the infiltration of technology into “workenvironments […] fundamentally changing the values of private lifeand public life.” Two projects in particular soberly present the minimalamount of individuality available to the knowledge worker in the con-temporary corporate environment: the personal coffee cup and thecomputer monitor screen-saver image.24

Within immediate Finnish circumstances, the irony of the Sonera tele-communications company’s recent travails is not only that manage-ment distrusted its workforce to the extent of violating employeeprivacy laws. What is most incongruous is that the mutual distrust (andultimately criminal acts) occurred within an all-too familiar glass-walled, “transparent” corporate headquarters. The disconnection be-tween corporate rhetoric and corporate behavior, and betweenarchitectural intentions and the unpredictability of plain human nature,has never been more evident.

4.3 LESS IS LESS

Any competitive corporation is engaged in public relations activity atall scales of communicative media. The positing of a new headquartersbuilding demands attention to its promotional value in its choice of lo-cation, form, and materiality. Architecture, at this scale and expense,must be symbolic – not because the architect intends it, but becausethe corporation requires it.

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In this task, the Finnish corporations’ recent design choices have re-flected the design choices of the larger architectural culture beyondtheir borders. But in adopting a design vocabulary of abstracted geo-metric forms rendered in glass, these corporate giants have approachedthe minimal limit of architecture’s communication value. The resultingtransparency or translucency and overall neutrality produces, at theirbest, phenomenal effects. However, any symbolic content – especiallywhen repeated in the neighboring boxes or cylinders – is lost, absorbedinto a fetishized display of material effect and technical systems of con-struction.

This loss of symbolic meaning – or at least, meaning reduced to simpledisplays of technological prowess – is a significant issue in contempo-

Nokia Research Center, Helsinki.

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rary architecture (along with the growing necessity of sustainably prin-cipled design). The emphatic reliance on glass enclosure systems at in-creasing scales has been identified as a major culprit in this loss. Asarchitect Juhani Pallasmaa25 stated at a 2004 glass technology confer-ence, “the development of the window from a metaphysical device offocusing and mediating our perception into an entire wall of glass, awall which evokes the total absence of the wall – as well as the disap-pearance of the window altogether – certainly also raises critical con-cerns. The entire house has now often turned into a window; we areinvited to live in a window, as it were. Such inversions may be excitingand thrilling, but they may also impoverish architecture by annihilatingits primary architectural essence.”

High Tech Center, Helsinki.

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Pallasmaa is not entirely pessimistic in this identification, holding outhope for an invigorated use of glass in design: “In today’s architecture,opacity and depth is often replaced by the enmeshing and layering oftranslucent, perforated, and transparent surfaces. The currently popularapplication of screening veils on top of glass surfaces is clearly an at-tempt to reintroduce mystery, ambiguity, fragmentation, and a distincttactile eroticism to all-glass facades. Even ornament and decorationhave reappeared in entirely new forms – as images imprinted or en-graved on sheets of glass.” (ibid.)

The transparent building of glass had been the long-held dream ofmodern architecture. Significantly, the prototypical application of astandardized glazed surface was the 1850 Crystal Palace in London, anexposition building devoted to commercial display. While modern ar-chitecture sought to realize its dream of an optimistic, democratic ar-chitecture through glass design, the demonstrations of the material’spossibilities increasingly occurred in corporate architecture. The 20th

century work of architect Mies van der Rohe epitomized this searchfor absolute transparency; his design for the Seagram’s Building in NewYork is a supreme alliance of corporate and architectural ambition inthe immediate post-World War Two years.

Following Olivetti’s European example of employing design as anoverall corporate strategy, in the 1950s IBM initiated an in-house totaldesign program to develop and reinforce its corporate image. Thecomputer technology giant employed Eliot Noyes, Paul Rand, Charlesand Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen to refine and integrate its corporateidentity at all scales, with an evident emphasis on what is now knownin architectural culture as both “literal and phenomenal transparency”.

In fact, as architectural theorist Reinhold Martin26 describes, much ofEero Saarinen’s work for corporate clients after World War Two em-ployed glass curtain wall systems in a parallel attempt to represent cor-porate character:

“[...] Eero Saarinen, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, and others throughout the1950s had [...] begun to stage this process: a potentially infinite mutability, in whichthe architectural module was a unit of variable content (partitions, glazing, lighting,etc.) through identification with – and the visual identity of – the integrated systemof the corporation was engineered. [...] Such an image – of the corporation as a

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flexible, integrated system – is seen to correspond with a “humanization” of corpo-rate life, as corporations decentralize both spatially and administratively.”

However inspirational the corporate work of van der Rohe and Saarin-en may have been, the reliance on these forms and material systems hasbeen judged to have reached both its technological peak and its sym-bolic low point at the present time. The contemporary collective in-dictment of these stylistic preferences is summarized succinctly byDutch critic Hans Ibelings. Labeling the contemporary works of mini-mal form, minimal material, and minimal character as “Supermodern,”he describes their disabling abstractions and transparencies in pro-foundly, disturbingly critical terms:

“Today’s [architectural] minimalism, incidentally, is purer than ever before, thanks toimprovements in technology and materials. This purity is found both in the extraor-dinary aesthetic architecture of the likes of Tadao Ando, Wiel Arets, and John Paw-son, and in the ‘almost nothing’ of today’s average glass box, the shape of which isalso more abstract than ever before [...] This simplicity is not primarily a reaction tothe aesthetic of visual excess, although that aspect certainly plays a role. In essence,the new abstraction is an expression of a fundamentally different attitude to archi-

General Motors Tech Center, Detroit.

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Seagram Headquarters, New York City.

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tecture which it sees less and less as significant and filled with symbolic meaning,and more and more as a neutral object. (italics by author)”27

The development of the glass curtain wall – now reaching its apogeein the current period of advanced glass technology – has not necessari-ly led to greater expressiveness of individual corporate character. In-deed, it is precisely the ubiquity of the technology that is implicated inthe downfall of architecture’s representational power. As Richard Sen-nett and Ada Louise Huxtable point out above, this “skin architecture”has “the transparency of money”. The neutrality of transparent formand character communicates both indifference to the environment anda sense of impermanence. The architect Mies van der Rohe’s oft-quot-ed dictum of “Less is more” has instead led, at least in the corporateworld of its application, to “Less is less.”

4.4 THE CORPORATE ARCHITECTURALEQUATIONS

Style, architectural modernism, the premium placed on the flexibilityin and transparency of the workplace in both literal and figural terms –these issues are central to corporate considerations of building formand character. Much of what has been sketched above attempts to indi-cate the very thinness of the premises that have dominated the concep-tion of modern architecture in these regards. As well, the three cardinalrules of real estate – location, location, and location – remain the con-temporary corporate imperatives. In the midst of open, real-estate driv-en economies, what remains at issue, for both management anddesigner, in Finland as elsewhere, are three corporate/architecture rela-tionships:

1) between the innovative thought and work of people; and the re-petitive, flexible spaces and installations of the work environment;

2) between the desired positive encounters and informal interactionamong employees; and the literal, material transparency of theworkplace;

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3) between the resultant transparent (and often double-glazed)prism of the building’s architecture – in both urban and suburbanlocations; and the projected public image of the corporation.

But with the positing of these relationships, deeper questions arise:Without privacy and stability at work, what value will such qualitieshave for the individual outside of their workplace? What symbolic civ-ic value can be attained when the agenda for corporate representationis shorn of all identifying marks, save that of “high-quality”? Addition-ally, as the urban realm of Finland continues to expand on commercial-ized terms, what will happen to the bonds between community andcorporation realized in previous periods by architectural design?

The driving force of Finland’s decade long economic surge may pro-vide an emblematic forecast. Even as Nokia’s CEO can espouse theFinnish location of the corporation’s headquarters, he emphatically de-emphasizes the reliance of the Nokia brand upon any perception of itsFinnish origins. In a 2002 lecture at an American university, Jorma Ol-lila28 described this seeming contradiction: “The Nokia brand is basedon the perception of quality. We discussed at length whether we wouldseek to characterize our products as identifiably ‘Finnish’ in their mar-keting, and ultimately set aside this idea. Nowadays, the Nokia nameand brand is often understood to be of Japanese origin. This doesn’tbother us; our concentration is simply on products of the highest quali-ty”.

Having invested in a headquarters in Finland, Nokia should still not berelied upon for permanent residence. Heretical as it may be, in today’sfluid global economy, the flagship of the Finnish economy may wellre-locate to Asia or South America at some point in the future, or actu-ally vanish as a corporate entity into another brand and structure. Thedynamics of the global economy and the all-too-clear instability ofcontemporary architecture (even in Finland) necessitate this considera-tion.

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5 DISSOLUTIONS:THE DISSOLVINGCORPORATION,THE DISSOLVING CITY“Capitalism is evolving continuously from its own inventive energies and presently,the corporate institution is exploring the potential of a new, dematerialized form,sometimes described as the “virtual corporation”. This power to coordinate andcontrol [production from afar] is based primarily on the corporation’s knowledge,not its real estate, its capital value anchored in brand names and products.”

William Greider, “The Soul of Capitalism”29

Architecture always affects its surrounding environment and alwaysrepresents values, whether banal or bombastic. Over the last year, mysurvey of leading corporations found such physical and representationalissues at work in the contemporary corporate headquarters architectureof Europe and the United States. The physical transparency, flexibility,hermeticism, and dispersion of corporate culture and architecture sug-gest that the contemporary corporation is both “dissolving” in front ofour eyes and a “dissolving agent” of our cities.

“All that is solid melts into air”, was Marx’s description of the dissolv-ing effects capitalist development would have upon the material prod-ucts, human relations and civic institutions of a culture. Ironically, hiswords at the least ring true in the corporate world of today, in whichcorporations are in literal physical dissolution. Maximizing the flexibil-ity of their operations, distancing and disassociating themselves fromproduction, corporations move their headquarters to suburban periph-eries, and still further from the centers of the developed world to loca-tions on the global periphery. This acceleration is visible inarchitectural form.

And while “the dissolving corporation” accelerates its material trans-formation and dispersion, simultaneously corporations must be seen aspotential “dissolving agents” of the cities in which they have chosen to

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locate. Legally, the responsibilities of their designs end at the site-line.More and more, their headquarters designs internalize their communi-ties of employees and workers. Headquarters now provide cafés, gyms,banks, day-care centers to such an extent that daily contact with theexternal life of the city is no longer necessary. In addition, all continueto rely upon automobile transport and parking.

5.1 A CORPORATE SURVEY: COCOONS,CAMPUSES AND GLASS BOXES

Wal-mart, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, is the world’s larg-est retail sales corporation – indeed, a corporation whose gross reve-nues place it 24th on the ranked list of national economies (Finland, forexample, is 31st)30. Described by Robert Reich31 as “the logical endpoint and future of the economy in a society whose pre-eminent value

Wal-mart, Lawrence, Kansas.

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is getting the best deal”, Wal-Mart relies upon both information tech-nology and a globalized economy to obtain its market power.

Its architecture is also a resultant of this “best deal” ethic. While a cen-tral location geographically for North America, the corporation’s non-descript, low-rise brick headquarters belies its assertive “super-store”strategy: 3,079 stores and affiliates across the American landscape and1,068 more in 18 countries.32

In Bentonville, Wal-Mart’s prosperity has turned northwest Arkansasinto one of the 15 fastest growing areas of the United States. The cor-poration’s requirement that its vendors have a representative office inBentonville has profoundly affected population growth and infrastruc-ture. It has spurred the construction of a new airport and entire hous-ing sub-divisions, with the consequently necessary schools andshopping centers. The 19th century saw the development of the “com-pany town”; Wal-Mart has produced the “corporate region.” (ibid.)

More importantly, the sales giant operates on a massive economy ofscale, with simultaneously immense geographical reach. The localized –

Wal-mart, Lawrence, Kansas.

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and international – economic effects of Wal-Mart’s business strategyhave been debated elsewhere. Its effect on real-estate values, highwayconstruction, urban sprawl and the increasingly banal, over-scaled land-scape of the contemporary city (not only in the United States) is thesubject of academic critique and real-time protest.e

And yet the corporation pursues other architectural avenues, perhapsstrategically, perhaps genuinely. Its first Eco Store opened in 1993 inLawrence, Kansas, followed by others in Oklahoma and California. Al-though this effort can be understood as an element of corporate mar-keting strategy, as Rem Koolhaas’ study on shopping has observed,nonetheless, “these Eco Stores feature many energy-saving measuressuch as solar lighting, a special plumbing system that reduces water use,and a futuristic HVAC system that consumes very little energy.” (ibid.)Such designs come at a high initial investment cost to Wal-Mart; thecompany is hesitant to duplicate them. Speaking of the most recentEco-Store slated for construction in Vancouver, B.C., Wal-Mart spokes-man Kevin Groh admitted that the company would re-coup its initialoutlay through energy savings and other efficiencies. “However,” saidGroh, “this specific design has not been slated for replication. It’s one ofa kind”.33

USA Today, or more precisely, the Gannett Corporation, constructedits new headquarters at the periphery of suburban Washington, D. C.,adjacent to the northern Virginia access road to Dulles InternationalAirport. Kohn, Pederson, Fox (KPF), the New York-based corporate de-sign firm, rejected the “familiar recycled modernism look of most cor-porate campuses”. Instead, the designers dispersed the corporation’stwo halves into a series of interconnected glass prism towers, each en-closed by a sleekly tailored curtain wall, and based on a common four-story podium. The public relations rhetoric accompanying thecorporate design is paradoxically civic-spirited in nature: “The podiumis modeled after a town square – an open community with peoplegathering and moving about. It has a common lobby and courtyardthat bring people together.”34

e See, for instance, Thomas Friedman: “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-FirstCentury”. New York, 2005: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 128-141.

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The building, recognized by Business News and Architectural Recordin 2003 with a design award, is described by its’ architects as a “land-scape” of forms and courtyards. “ Rooftop terraces and extensive land-scaping integrate a green environment into the building’s work areas.”(ibid.)

Microsoft worked with Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK), agiant among world architecture firms, to develop a suburban corporate“campus” in Redmond, Washington. Its commitment to a permanentheadquarters has been paralleled by its astounding rise in stock prices.The sense of permanence is communicated by the design’s careful in-tegration of buildings with landscaped open space. This planning, to-gether with the precisely detailed stone panels of the construction,places Microsoft in deliberate contrast to the uncoordinated and thinlyconstructed leased spaces of Silicon Valley.

Nonetheless, the traditional image of a campus tends to evoke percep-tions of an open academic community engaged in unbounded inquiry,

USA Today, McLean, Virginia.

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selflessly disengaged from political or economic pressures. As an eco-nomic entity, Microsoft is truly a gated community, and in reality, theprotective security measures surrounding this community are tight.

The enveloping rectilinear architecture seems to reflect the corporateethos. Amidst “the manicured lawns and sculpted berms and softballfields and fancy cafeterias […] Microsoft moves slowly and doesn’tmake sharp turns”. Bill Gates himself facetiously refers to his headquar-ters as “The Borg”, a telling reference to Star Trek’s monstrous, blackcubic hive structure that is the antithesis of humane values in the uni-verse.35

Interestingly, when developing its newest product, the Xbox 360video-game console, Microsoft management “went outside the (cam-pus) box,” to the Silicon Valley model. The Xbox design team purpose-ly isolated itself in a generic office park, some distance from the homecampus, setting up a “separate division that is physically, geographically,psychologically, and spiritually different”. Creativity and innovation…but outside the Borg campus.(ibid.)

Ford, under the leadership of CEO William Ford, has moved to re-brand itself as a 21st century environmentally responsible auto manu-facturer, an extreme indication of “enviro-preneurship.” Ford has movedrapidly to the pace of environmental architect William McDonough,re-conceiving its overall design and production approaches, from theindividual automobile to the design of its new Rouge truck plant. Thecompany is investing $2 billion in re-making its 87 year old, 600 acreRouge manufacturing complex from “an icon of vertically integratedmanufacturing in the twentieth century to a model of sustainability inthe twenty-first”.36

Opened in April, 2004, the new Rouge truck plant, southwest of De-troit in Dearborn, Michigan, is the most visible and substantial evi-dence of this effort to date. Described as “one of the biggestexperiments in eco-friendly design on the planet”, the 1.16 millionsquare foot aluminum paneled box is plain and undistinguished fromthe ground. But its 10 acre “green, living roof ”, punctuated by largeskylights, is the world’s largest, according the Guinness Book of WorldRecords. The big roof is planted with sedum – a small, invasive succu-lent that blooms in spring with tiny white, yellow, red and purple flow-

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ers. The vegetation, which is expected to double the life of the rooffrom 15 to 30 years, provides insulation and protection from ultravioletlight. (ibid.)

Most important, the roof is designed to soak up 4 million gallons ofstorm water a year, releasing it slowly into a constructed wetland im-mediately to the east, where it collects in terraced ponds. The strategyis estimated to have saved Ford as much as $5 million that the compa-ny would have had to invest in a water-treatment plant. (ibid.)

Ford - Rouge Truck Plant, Dearborn, Michigan.

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The roof ’s light monitors flood the interior assembly floor with day-light, reducing electricity needs and keeping workers attuned to thecycle of the sun. The interior is also remarkably free of heating andcooling ductwork, as traditional air-conditioning approaches were setaside in favor of a mechanical system designed to provide an even airflow.

Ford officials expect the building to save them millions of dollars byincreasing worker productivity and reducing outlays for energy, main-tenance, and storm-water treatment. But these are early days for suchperformance measurements. For now, the effect on the environment isalready in evidence, with birds nesting on the roof and mallards gather-ing in the constructed wetland. Public tours of the building sell outregularly and advance reservations are required. The company has won20 awards for various parts of the site or for the whole complex itself,including Facility of the Year from the Environmental Protection Mag-azine, and the Gold LEED (the U.S. environmental design rating sys-tem) Award from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Ford’s efforts do not lack critics, however. Daniel Becker, director of theSierra Club’s global warming program, admires the plant’s achieve-ments, but is skeptical: “Whatever they did to the plant is marvelous,but if they’re producing pick-up trucks that pollute too much, whatare they accomplishing?”37

A $2 billion in capital investment is a considerable sum, however, as isthe personal and corporate gamble that Bill Ford is taking with thecompany. Architect William McDonough sees the corporate directionas one of the strongest indications yet of “the new triple bottom line”informing contemporary corporate performance: economy, ecologyand equity. 38

Telenor, the Norwegian telecommunications giant (the world’s largestoperator of mobile satellite services) has consolidated nearly 6,000 em-ployees into a new, glassed, prismatic headquarters on the Oslo fjord.The largest headquarters of any Scandinavian company, Telenor’s effortsimultaneously addressed its desire for a more singular, identifiable cor-porate location – and its aim to reduce overall corporate direct and in-direct energy consumption costs.

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Equally, the concurrent shift in workplace culture to Telenor’s desired“office of the future” could also be accomplished more effectively andcomprehensively during a transition to a new, collective building. “Theoffice of the future” for Telenor is a now patented, virtually paperless,highly mobile, literally transparent, intimate environment. Employeesare reliant upon digital and wireless technologies; this frees them froma specific desk in a specific office. The floors lack even a patterned open‘landscape’ of work stations.

On the basis of a limited competition, Telenor selected architect PeterPran, working with American-based firm NBBJ. Strategically, for bothdesigners and corporation, the project signified another level of ambi-tion in corporate design: “This is well beyond a brand statement forTelenor ... this is a building that seeks to encourage more creativethought, and more effective decisions.”

This attitude towards the desired psychological effects of the design,combined with the natural illumination requirements of the Norwe-gian building code, condition the Telenor design essentially into a se-ries of thin, glass-and-travertine-sheathed volumes, in which thecorporate ambition for openness and transparency in workplace activi-

Telenor Headquarters Office Interior, Oslo.

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ty is met literally by the materiality, illumination, and flexibility of thedesign and construction.f

Nike-Europe, at the directive of their CEO of European Operations,chose to locate in 1999 in Hilversum, just outside of Amsterdam, andproximate to continental highway access and Schipol Airport. Essen-tially a design, sales and marketing center for the corporation’s opera-tions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Nike-EMEA has theappearance of permanent, low-scaled collegiate campus centeredaround a lawn and reflecting pool in the midst of the Dutch neighbor-hoods. As with Ford’s re-branding efforts in social and environmentalresponsibility, Nike too employed eco-architect William McDonoughto give his attention and imprimatur to the 375,000 square foot pro-gram of offices, retail space, restaurants, a health and fitness center, andcommons areas.

Despite the air of permanence, Nike-EMEA is latently possessed byflexibility and mobility. The extensive program of spaces places a high

Telenor Headquarters, Oslo.

f For a longer architectural description of Telenor, see Peter MacKeith: “Telenor’s World Head-quarters”, Architectural Record, May 2003.

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premium on employee comfort because of the competitive market fordesign, sales and marketing employees; in these fields, the average turn-over is within 18 months. To increase employee satisfaction and miti-gate turnover, Nike follows the corporate trend in providing aninternalized community of banking services, restaurants and cafes,gymnasia and other recreation areas.

Nike-EMEA is of course a commendable “green” building, one of thefirst in Europe to be heated and cooled by an efficient geo-thermalsystem, incorporating a “gray-water” recycling system, and mindful ofnatural illumination throughout all its levels. The outdoor basketballcourts are made of recycled Nike training shoes. These aspects alsolend themselves to community relations, to employee appeal, and tomore general marketing efforts.

But again, Nike-EMEA is not quite a permanent corporate presence.While constructed to its environmental specifications, Nike leases thebuilding from a separate development corporation. This flexible finan-cial arrangement is reflected in the design – should Nike depart for

Nike-EMEA Headquarters, Hilversum.

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other premises in the future, the complex can be converted into anumber of other possible programs: other commercial uses, but also(and notably) for housing. As of 2004, the company had already out-grown the dimensions of the new construction, and was seeking addi-tional space adjacent to the campus.

Volkswagen describes itself as basically a two-model company – theGolf and the Passat – but it is the Golf that drives its fortunes, and byextension the fortunes of Wolfsburg, Germany, home of its Golf pro-duction plant. Perhaps it was no surprise then, when in fall, 2003, themayor of the city ordered the name of the city to be officially changedto “Golfsburg” for six weeks, as a means of assisting the car manufactur-er in launching its new, 5th generation Golf model. The identification ofthe city with the corporation and a particular corporate product is notunique, but it is at an extreme. Wolfsburg “is the quintessential compa-ny town – a city of 125,000 that was founded in 1938 by Hitler toturn out Europe’s first mass-produced vehicle, the Volkswagen … sixdecades after its founding, (the city) remains a support system for a gar-gantuan car factory”. Although Wolfsburg can point to a cultural centerby Alvar Aalto, a theater by Hans Scharoun, and now a science center

Volkswagen, Wolfsburg.

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Volkswagen, Wolfsburg.

Volkswagen, Wolfsburg.

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by Pritzer Prize-winner Zaha Hadid, it is the factory exhaust stacksthat punctuate the skyline.39

In fact, the city is working beyond its temporary “re-branding” exerciseto promote its virtues as a tourist destination rather than as an industri-al site. Partnering with Volkswagen, Wolfsburg constructed the Autos-tadt, a 62 acre automobile theme-park complex directly adjacent tothe VW factories. Designed by Gunther Henn, the architect responsi-ble for Volkswagen’s “transparent factory” in Dresden, Autostadt dis-plays many of the same architectural intentions of seeming opennessand technological theatricality. While a visitor can stroll through pavil-ions devoted to the range of VW brands and automobile history, centralto the theme-park’s intent is the intensification of car desire and own-ership through a highly choreographed product delivery center. Thesequence attempts to render the point of product delivery into themost intimate, or sacred, human experience. Significantly, the new ve-hicles are kept secluded in two cylindrical glass towers until their newowners arrive; the Wolfsburg information center now proposes thatthese “Auto-Towers” are the symbols of the new civic identity.

Simultaneously, BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz are all initiating new-ly-designed research and development centers. Alongside theme-park-like product delivery centers, these engage in their design an almostpredictable series of high-profile architects: Hadid, Coop Himmelblau,Asymptote, Morphosis. These designs are typically experiments inform – dynamic roofs, structural systems, circulation ramps, etc. – withan emphasis on demonstrating the sophisticated technology employedin the automobile and on heightening “the delivery experience” forthe purchaser. (ibid.)

5.2 ACCELERATED MOBILITY, BUILDINGTO SUB-LET

For the last 15 years at least, leading business executives and academicshave proclaimed the death of traditional corporate operating structures.In their place is “the new corporate architecture,” constructed by a tri-ad of innovative management structures – the modular, the virtual, and

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the barrier-free. These are extolled as the building blocks of “theboundaryless organization,” a contemporary corporate form describedby GE’s former CEO, Jack Welch, as “a company […] where we knockdown the walls that separate us from each other on the inside and fromour key constituencies on the outside.”40

In its purest form, it is said, the boundaryless corporation need not havea central office, an organizational chart or a hierarchy. In its architecturalform, the organizational terms of the boundaryless corporation leadinto the virtual disembodiment of the corporation in architecturalterms: total spatial flexibility, utter material transparency.

Given the extreme financial pressures and rapid shifts in the make-upof corporate management, as well as the indications of contemporaryarchitectural expression, nothing should be regarded as sacred territory- certainly not national character. The Economist’s 2003 year-end sta-tistics and forecast summary41 on corporate movements and re-loca-tions predicts that an increasing number of multinationals will shift theoperation and control of key business functions away from their headoffice, dispersing headquarters functions to different regions. Accordingto the article, “a recent UNCTAD survey found that 829 ‘HQ opera-tions’ of multi-nationals were relocated between January 2002 andMarch 2003, nearly a quarter of them in developing countries”.

Architecture’s potential to keep up with this accelerating pace of busi-ness development is limited. But this is true only when architecture isunderstood as design reliant upon a stable geographic location, the pro-vision of stable enclosures, and commonly held symbols of meaning.On these terms, architecture’s contribution to corporate identity andprofitability may simply be beside the bottom-line point. In HarvardBusiness School professor Donald Sull’s view42, “building to last” incorporate headquarters can be seen as a sign of arrogance and incipientdecline:

“Modern business executives often satisfy their “edifice complex” by erecting elab-orate new corporation headquarters. Like Augustus’ building programs, these head-quarters can mark the beginning of corporate decline. Building a grand corporateheadquarters [...] can signal that management has declared competitive victory andwishes to commemorate its triumph. Executives who memorialize their success rare-ly question the commitments that enabled their success in the first place.

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Building an elaborate corporate headquarters can also lock a company into a com-munity – a double-edged sword [...] Erecting enduring buildings makes a strongsymbolic statement. By literally “setting commitments in stone [...] “ buildingprojects signal permanence and continuity that may inhibit managers’ ability to re-think and reverse their former commitments. The nondescript office building in Sil-icon Valley can quickly adjust to new tenants, whereas the corporate monumentcan easily outlast the corporation, making a mausoleum of the coliseum. Instead of‘building to last’[...] maybe we should think more about ‘building to sublet’?”

This devaluation of architecture (understood in these business terms asan art of unnecessary permanence and arrogant symbolic meaning) isfurthered by Sull’s sharpened point in a 2004 Forbes magazine assess-ment43. Using Time-Warner’s new Manhattan headquarters – and itssubsequent 65 percent decline in stock prices – as an example of cor-porate pride coming before its fall, Sull provides a damning tip to in-vestors and business managers: “steer clear of companies whoseheadquarters win architecture awards”.

Indeed, numerous examples can be found on correlating award-win-ning headquarters construction with share price decline. By this meth-od, Levi-Strauss, The Gap, and Alcoa can all be depicted in financialdecline after winning their architectural recognition, while Gannett(USA Today), Bayer and Time Warner are on the brink or already slid-ing.

5.3 ARCHITECTURE’S LOSS OF IDENTITY

This brand of bottom-line equations encourages the corporation to re-ject architecture in all but its most debased form – in favor of an en-hanced financial result. Simultaneously, the discipline of architecture, soqualitatively based, has struggled with its own identity throughout theevolution of capitalist society. The discourse of contemporary architec-ture describes an increasing series of internal critiques, which have au-tonomously attempted to re-define architecture’s ambitions andpossibilities within corporate culture.

Madrid-based architects Iñaki Abalos and Juan Herreros44, for example,produce a devastating critique of modern architecture. Their analysislinks technological advances in building practice in the 20th centuryto the new organizational forms of the global capitalist economy.

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Through this association, Abalos and Herreros identify a fundamentalshift in our culture’s understanding of architectural form and urbanspace. Examining systematically the characteristic architectural formsof the modern corporation, they conclude that “material practices andthe production of contemporary space reflect technological change,particularly the new popularity and central role of communicationstechnology, which at the global level has produced instability and atthe regional level a lack of articulation associated with flexible accu-mulation”.

Abalos and Herreros indict and convict a century of modernist archi-tectural models, proposing a dystopic contemporary circumstance: “Adifferent concept of the skyscraper, a different concept of the periphery,a different concept of type and function, a different concept of urbanspace, and a historical topos lacking any kind of function: the destruc-tion of modern technical, typological, and urban paradigms is com-plete”.

In this state of internal crisis, a number of subsequent architectural cri-tiques since the early 1990s simply admit powerlessness to representeither nation or community in the face of an overwhelming foe. Archi-tecture has been co-opted, it is argued, and is now a part of the corpo-rate culture. Its program, so to speak, is the corporate program, not asystem of meaning outside of the commission. Architecture, and eventhe choice of architect, has become an extension of marketing, brand-building, and a media culture fixated on celebrity. As one Europeancritic held, “the stars of architecture are necessary because only they,through their name, can attract the necessary publicity for large-scaleprojects [...]. Nobody would know that the Hong Kong Shanghai Bankexisted if it hadn’t been built by Norman Foster”.45 Think: Guggenhe-im-Gehry-Bilbao.

The supposed celebrity of the designer is harnessed into the CorporateIdentity machine, as the struggle to define the identity of anonymouscorporations becomes ever more difficult: “Potential clients of architec-tural projects are becoming increasingly anonymous. Anonymous in-vestment companies, anonymous cities. Companies that no longer haveowners […], cities that have become interchangeable: only corporateculture offers the possibility to create a “distinguishable identity” […].

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In the future architecture must be understood as part of just this corpo-rate culture”. (ibid.)

Others are more pragmatic, realistically attempting to identify a wayforward for architecture in a commercialized world. As Anna Kling-mann46 writes, “architecture needs to rethink its position as an integralconstituent of contemporary social networks, that is, as a complex enti-ty of globalized market forces, communications, and design.[...] Archi-tecture has already become part of a package that may best bedescribed by the idea of Corporate Identity. […] In order to secure itssurvival as a ‘singular commodity’, it needs to engage some of theinterdisciplinary thought of marketing, to the degree that it may com-pete with other products on the market”.

Thus a tragic summary can be stated: even as the corporation is effec-tively dissolving its physical presence in its elected “mobile work-place”, in its transparent appearances and ever more dispersed locations,contemporary architecture in the service of the corporation is itselfdissolving. First losing its coherence as a discipline, architecture thendisappears into the corporate image-making systems. The corporationdissolves its physical presence and dissolves the historical city as archi-tecture abnegates its ethical position.

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6 THE CORPORATECHALLENGE“New information technologies (including ethically controlled genetic engineer-ing) could yield their promise of a virtuous interaction between the power of mindand the well-being of society. No need to look into the future: just look around atcourageous efforts such as those taking place in Finland. The Finns have quietly es-tablished themselves as the first true information society, with one website per per-son, internet access in 100 percent of schools, a computer literacy campaign foradults, the largest diffusion of computer power and mobile telephony in the world,and a globally competitive information technology industry, spearheaded by Nokia.At the same time they have kept in place, with some fine-tuning, the welfare state.Finnish society fosters citizen participation and safeguards civility. It is probably notan accident that Linus Torvalds is a Finn [...]. The catch is that Linus Torvalds nowlives in Silicon Valley.”

Manuel Castells: “Information Technology and Global Capitalism” in Global Capital-ism47

Having allied itself to modern architecture for the development andrepresentation of its institutions, Finnish architectural culture has alsoattached itself to modernism’s relentless dynamic, one turbocharged bythe dynamic of capitalist economics. The difficulty of this relationshiphas only become acutely apparent in Finland in the last decade.

6.1 THE MODERN DYNAMIC

Writing in the centenary issue of Arkkitehti-lehti in 2003, architect,professor and former head of the National Board of Public BuildingMatti K. Mäkinen48 outlined the contemporary conditions for archi-tects in Finland in directly economic terms, without reference to aes-thetics, representational techniques or cultural discourse: “The mantraof our times is the trinity of economy, growth, and competitiveness.The real estate and building conglomeration in control of the businesswing of the profession wants to have responsibility – or at least thepower – for the concreteness of building. Social debate has been re-served for the pastures of researchers, and the fences of thinking are setby sponsoring systems.” Mäkinen’s insights are stated realistically, as thenew Zeitgeist, although not without a tinge of melancholy.

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Architectural historian Kenneth Frampton49, himself an observer andadvocate of Finnish architecture, echoes Mäkinen’s dark vision in alarger perspective: “Architects are confronted today by a crisis of valuecomparable to that experienced by [the 19th century architecturaltheorist] Gottfried Semper in 1851, when he first realized the culturaldepreciation that had already been effected through machine produc-tion and the substitution of materials […] Over the last century and ahalf this cultural devaluation has greatly increased in scope, and its maineffect has now shifted to the “spectacular” side of the economic cycle[...]”.

Steeped in the Frankfurt School of political and moral economy,Frampton remains resistant and defiant in the midst of this continuing“crisis”: “If this assessment is essentially correct, then two critical hold-ing strategies suggest themselves. In the first instance the manifest ne-cessity for architects to maintain their command over the art ofbuilding as a spatial and tectonic discipline; in the second, the equallypressing demand to educate and sensitize their potential clientele, for asis obvious from the spectacular nature of late capitalism, little of cultur-al significance will be achieved in the future without the presence of anenlightened client.”

If Finnish business culture can be characterized as “creative” and “inno-vative” – and here we should be wary of the business-school sheen giv-en to these words – it remains a very open question if its accomp-anying architecture is its match. The transparency envisioned and val-orized by modern architecture, often in the name of a more democrat-ic, optimistic world, has become the default appearance attached to anycorporate brand.

The confluence of Finnish corporate practice and Finnish architecturalpractice has produced a limited, operative set of design monuments.Neutral, transparent and abstract in appearance, these designs are stillactive presences in the public perception of the corporations and in theurban and suburban landscapes of their occupation. But the corporateambition is solely for a “high-quality” product, and corporate responsi-bility for the character of the city and the quality of the environmentends at the sidewalk or parking garage. Will the resulting architecturehave any necessary relationship to the society, culture and civic realmin which it is physically situated?

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6.2 FINNISH OPPORTUNITIES

Finnish architecture has shown that it can more than keep up with theswings and shifts of design formulations and building technologies.Nevertheless, true innovation in corporate design conception and pro-duction remains necessary – as for the larger design culture. Even acursory survey of corporate architecture across the world reveals alandscape of design still largely vacant of consistent, positive models.But, by virtue of Finland’s education system and knowledge base(which includes an awareness of design), its historical development, anda cultural consciousness still rooted to the natural landscape, the Finnishculture offers the precise location in which to research and develop re-sponses to the debilitating consequences of contemporary corporatearchitecture.

A real, contemporary cause for optimism amidst the Finnish circum-stances can be found in the recent research into the thinking behindopen-source software by Pekka Himanen and his colleagues at theFinnish National Fund for Research and Development. Their investiga-tions into “open-source approaches” to learning and community de-velopment have given rise to a concept they term civil communitiesof practice. As they describe the possibility, “the tools and governanceprinciples of the open-source software community, in some modifiedform, could yield new approaches to community organization andplanning”.50 Design, always understood as a collaborative, integrativeenterprise lends itself easily to these open-source approaches.

In the Finnish juxtaposition of corporate culture and architectural cul-ture, three areas of research and development are of particular relevanceand importance to a civil community of practice. First, in the deep ex-amination of the relationship between “creativity”, “innovation”, andworkplace design; that is to say, the understanding of the creative indi-vidual. Second, in the comprehension, valuation, and articulation ofthose civic “spaces in-between” the transparent walls and lot lines ofcorporate constructions; that is to say, the understanding of the civicrealm. And finally, in researching and obtaining a true sustainable archi-tecture, through a knowing “natural capitalism”. Such an architecturewould incorporate life-cycle studies, adaptive re-use strategies, and the

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full range of environmentally responsible materials and technologies.Thus, the understanding of the environment.g

New frameworks of integrated and responsive design thinking arepresent in certain corporate architectural strategies nowadays, fromHerman Miller’s headquarters in the United States to the new Deut-sche Post Tower in Bonn, Germany. Boeing in the United States and

Deutsche Post Tower, Bonn.

g Relevant material to this understanding ranges from Herman E. Daly and Joshua Farley’s newtextbook for economics, Ecological Economics (Washington, D. C., 2004: Island Press) to the oft-quoted Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins (New York, 1999:Little, Brown and Company) to an ever-expanding list of architectural resources.

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BMW in Germany have recently opened new production facilities in-tegrating administrative offices, placing designers, engineers, and sales-people directly adjacent to the factory floors and giving real attentionto the conditions of the office workers.h Indeed, Architecture journalrecently heralded a changed “sensory and moral climate” in office de-sign. Announcing “A New Age of Officing” in its May, 2005 issue, thearticle highlighted postmillennial facilities “project[ing] a new attitudetoward today’s knowledge worker. Focusing on basic human needs –daylight, fresh air, elbowroom – and our society’s often-tenuous rela-tionship with the outdoors […] the designs appeal to current philoso-phies of high-performance organizations, but they tame the inevitableproduction mindset with the means for stress reduction: exercise, so-cializing, and interacting with nature”.51

At least two prototypes of these overlapping forms of thought in de-sign are to be found already in Finland. The first, Heikkinen andKomonen’s 1997 design for the headquarters of McDonald’s-Finland, isnotable for its resistance to the corporation’s generic design manual inform and materiality. No sentimental recollection of American dinershere! In large measure, this was initially due to the then CEO of Mc-Donald’s-Finland insisting on a building of “modern, Finnish, design” –and then to the selection of Heikkinen-Komonen through an invitedcompetition.52

The headquarters can be characterized as a predictable geometric ob-ject of evident transparency and open-plan interiors. However, its ap-parent simplicity belies a more complex reality. The design iscivic-minded in its gate-tower structure at the city’s edge, and in itsdetailed attention to its immediate landscape. Equally, the building isinformed by a tangible environmental consciousness. The roof is cov-ered in crushed recycled glass and the glass cylinder itself is wrapped ina wooden shade-trellis constructed of a product called Thermowood.

h See Fred Moody: “Boeing’s Building Boom,” and Phil Patton: “Drive-thru Office,” Metropolis,July 2005. Boeing’s facility designer, Scott Wyatt of NBBJ, speaks of “transformational design” in cor-porate work, design that transforms company morale and productivity. The BMW plant in Leipzig,designed by Pritzker Prize winner Zaha Hadid, attempts to address the concept of “the space offlows,” – of ideas, people, and products.

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The material is a Finnish product developed by the State TechnicalResearch Center (VTT) to serve as a substitute for environmentallyendangered woods such as teak and mahogany. Lastly, the corporate“sign”, perhaps the most powerful corporate icon in the world, is apop-art installation in the townscape.

While there are state-supported examples of environmentally con-scious designs at the developing University of Helsinki campus in Viik-ki, a more recent and relevant example is SARC’s recent design andconstruction of the Metla House in Joensuu. This newest researchcenter of the Finnish Forest Research Institute is built on the campusof the University of Joensuu, embedded in the street pattern of thatcity’s center. A state-sponsored building devoted to the study of theforest, Metla proposes a multi-story office and laboratory building, onestructured, clad and detailed largely of wood, with inspiration in itsforms found in boat design and vernacular architecture. Its open court-yard is a public space, and its glazing is attuned to the character of theinterior spaces. Both the architects and the sponsoring agency espouse

McDonald’s-Finland Headquarters, Helsinki.

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Metla House, Joensuu.

Metla House, Joensuu.

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the ambition of the building as a “realistic alternative” in wood formulti-level office construction. i

Although Metla is but one (admittedly limited) anecdote, and not yetfully transferable, its design demonstrates that none of these areas of in-novation are solvable on technological terms alone. All rely upon liter-

i Fore more, see “Metla-talo”, “Arkkitehti-lehti”, The Finnish Architectural Review, volume 2,2005.

University of Helsinki - Viikki Infocenter, Helsinki.

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ate, sensitive, reflective thought, upon a creativity borne out of a cul-ture of “noble poverty” and “civil community” more than through aculture of consumption, upon an awareness still of the immediateproximity and value of nature.

In doing so, Finnish architecture may well return to its early 20th cen-tury indebtedness to nature, to the forest landscape, and to the sense ofcommunity fostered by that landscape. This architecture will not beachieved through the literal, naive depiction of bears and pine cones,but through a biomorphic comprehension and transformation of theforest landscape into a truly environmentally sensitive and intelligentarchitecture, one that engages its inhabitants as individuals and citizens.

6.3 CONCLUSION: FROM INFORMATIONSOCIETY TO DESIGN CULTURE

Finnish business and Finnish architecture faced severe challenges in the20th century and demonstrated admirable qualities of self-examination,planning, and development. The recovery and invigoration of the postWorld War II industrial economy was accompanied by an equal invig-oration and production in design and architecture. The last 20 years ofeconomic cycles, and the rise of the information technology economy,have been accompanied by similar design intensity.

If there is now public distress over the loss of heroic ambition in Finn-ish architecture – where is the exuberance of Aalto, or Pietilä, or theoptimistic planning ideals of Tapiola? – the quality of the built environ-ment at least remains directly reflective of the economic stresses underwhich contemporary architecture must operate (indeed, under whichmuch of society and culture now operates). Value-engineering, low-bidder contracting, fast-track construction schedules, and optimizedfloor-area ratios, along with the blunt privatization of urban life, allcombine to slowly erase architecture’s social contract with the public,and place it solely in the service of the bottom line and the brand.

Working together, citizens educated to the pressures on the environ-ment posed by a solely financial calculation of “quality” and govern-ment policies in support of a deeper quality to the environment can

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counteract such market-driven economic forces. The Prime Ministerof Finland, Matti Vanhanen, and the Speaker of the Finnish Parliament,Paavo Lipponen, have both been clear in their perspectives on thesenecessities. As Prime Minister Vanhanen stated recently, “quality [...]should not be restricted to technological and economic aspects. Func-tional, social, and aesthetic quality are just as important for the individ-ual and the community.”53

Yet as highly educated, dedicated professionals, architects of any nation-ality cannot simply be coerced, co-opted, or silent under the influenceof the corporate world. Nor can architects propose to the public theautonomy of their work, neither as pure form, nor as pure technique,nor as pure branding. All such positions are states of denial and denialsof responsibility. Architects must be engaged in the advocacy and con-struction of an ethical economy out of capitalism, not simply to repre-sent its political economy. Finnish architects as a group – setting asidefor now the history of a cultural reliance upon singular, “heroic” figures– are uniquely qualified to do this.

The challenges to both Finnish architecture and to Finnish corporatepractice are not those of technical knowledge or technological innova-tion, and certainly not ones of creative ability. Rather, they are onesbased on the complement to the idea of a political economy, that of anethical economy. Equally, the challenge is to transform the romance of“an information society” – the contemporary, unqualified, relentlessstream of data and images – and the commerce-driven ideal of a “de-sign economy.” As John Thackara writes, such a transformation will beguided by “a belief that ethics and responsibility can inform design de-cisions without constraining the social and technical innovation we allneed to do.” The new paradigm is the more significant, responsible,empathetic responses of a design culture.j

j There are several advocates of this desirable cultural shift. For those attuned to business practic-es, management guru Tom Peters outlined ideas of “design mindfulness” and “a culture of design” in1996 at the 45th International Design Conference in Aspen (Tom Peters: “Design Mindfulness,” inThe New Business of Design. New York, 1996: The Allsworth Press, pp. 16-45). Also see, for instance,Daniel H. Pink: “A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age” .(Riverhead, 2005), and John Thackara: “In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World”. (Cam-bridge, Mass., 2005: The MIT Press).

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The challenge articulated here to Finland’s corporate culture and to itsbuilding practice is to acquire and act upon a deeper knowledge, moresearching and more critical in its conceptualization, acquisition and ap-plication. The challenge is to engage another form of creativity, direct-ed and qualified by Finnish circumstances in the use of limitedresources and in the invigoration of public space. The challenge is tocomprehend and re-conceptualize the representational, spatial and cul-tural effects of “dissolving corporations”.

Innovation and application in these areas, irrespective of style and sym-bolism, yet mindful of costs and consequences across a longer duration,will benefit architecture, corporate image, public perception, and allcitizens. Such design works will be verifiable hallmarks of an ultimateFinnish creativity: a means of living and working, grounded in an ethi-cal sensibility and in the natural world.

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REFERENCES1 Will Hutton, Anthony Giddens, editors: “Preface”, Global Capitalism. (New York: 2000, The NewPress).

2 Riitta Nikula, Architecture and Landscape: “The Building of Finland”. (Helsinki, 1993: Otava Pub-lishing Company Ltd.).

3 Richard Florida and Irene Tinagli: “Europe in the Creative Age”, index. (London, 2004: TheDemos Institute.).

4 Gillian Darley: “Factory”. (London, 2003: Reaktion Books Ltd, p. 210.)

5 Trevor Harris: “Urban(e) Do(p)ing”, in Arkkitehti-lehti, The Finnish Architectural Review 2, 2001.

6 Helsinki News, December 2004.

7 Performed by the European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON).

8 Adrian Forty: “Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture“. New York, 2000:Thames & Hudson).

9 Juha-Pekka Raeste, “Vieras mies tuli taloon,” Helsingin Sanomat, 7 September 2003.

10 Jonathan Moorhouse, Michael Carapetian, Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse: “Helsinki Jugendstil Archi-tecture 1895-1915”. (Helsinki, 1987: Otava Publishing Company, Ltd).

11 Jonathan Moorhouse, Michael Carapetian, Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse: “Helsinki Jugendstil Archi-tecture 1895-1915”. (Helsinki, 1987: Otava Publishing Company, Ltd).

12 Jonathan Moorhouse, Michael Carapetian, Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse: “Helsinki Jugendstil Archi-tecture 1895-1915”. (Helsinki, 1987: Otava Publishing Company, Ltd).

13 Gustav Strengell and Sigurd Frosterus: “Architecture: A Challenge”. Abacus, Yearbook 3 (Helsinki,1983: The Museum of Finnish Architecture).

14 Richard Sennett: “Capitalism and the City”, in Marcial Echenique and Andrew Saint, editors,“Cities for the New Millenium”. (London and New York, 2001: Spon Press, pp. 15-22.)

15 John Thackara: “In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World“. (Cambridge, Mass., 2005: TheMIT Press, p. 104.)

16 Arkkitehti-lehti, The Finnish Architectural Review, volume 1, 1998.

17 Jorma Ollila: “Managing a Culture of Innovation”, lecture, 12 November 2002, Washington Uni-versity in St. Louis School of Architecture, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

18 Linda Tischler: “Death to the Cubicle”, Fast Company, June 2005, p. 30.

19 Martin Kihn: “Outside the Box: The Inside Story”, Fast Company, June 2005, p. 40.

20 Terry Pristin: “A New Office Can Mean Making Do With Less”, The New York Times, 26 May2004.

21 Paola Antonelli, editor: “Workspheres: Design and Contemporary Work Styles”. New York, 2001:The Museum of Modern Art.

22 Linda Tischler: “Death to the Cubicle”, Fast Company, June 2005.

23 John Thackara: “In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World”. (Cambridge, Mass., 2005: TheMIT Press, pp. 124-125.)

24 Jacqueline Hassink: “Mindscapes”. (Basel, 2005: Birkhauser Publishers.)

25 Juhani Pallasmaa: “Immateriality and Transparency: Technique and Expression in Glass Architec-ture” in Juhani Pallasmaa, author, Peter MacKeith, editor: “Encounters: Architectural Essays”. (Hel-sinki, 2005: Rakennustieto Oy).

26 Martin Reinhold: “The Organizational Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space”.(Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 2003: The MIT Press.)

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27 Hans Ibelings: “Supermodernism: Architecture in the Age of Globalization”. (Rotterdam, 2002:NaI Publishers, p. 51.)

28 Jorma Ollila: “Managing a Culture of Innovation,” lecture, 12 November 2002, Washington Uni-versity in St. Louis School of Architecture, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

29 William Greider: “The Soul of Capitalism”. (New York, 2003: Simon & Schuster.)

30 Rem Koolhaas et al: “The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping”. (Cambridge, 2001: ThePresident and Fellows of Harvard College).

31 Robert Reich: quoted in: Steve Lohr: “Discount Nation: Is Wal-Mart Good for America?”. TheNew York Times, 7 December 2003.

32 Rem Koolhaas et al: “The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping”. (Cambridge, 2001: ThePresident and Fellows of Harvard College).

33 Bay Brown: “Wal-Mart’s Green Gambit”, Architecture, May 2005, p. 17.

34 “Not Just Another Glass Box”, Business Week, 3 November 2003.

35 Lev Grossman: “Out of the Xbox”, Time, May 23, 2005.

36 Steven Litt: “Some Sustainability Required”, Architecture, May, 2004.

37 Don Hammonds: “Greener, literally: Ford’s better ideas for newest plant include grass-coveredroof, pollution-eating plants“, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12 November, 2004.

38 William McDonough and Michael Braungart: “Beyond the Triple Bottom Line: A New Standardfor 21st Century Commerce“,The Green Money Journal, volume xiii, issue 4, number 55.

39 Mark Landler: “A German Town Tells Volkswagen: We Are Family”, The New York Times, 31 Au-gust 2003; Benedetto Camerana: “Autoidentita – Architecture as Identity”, L’Arca, n. 146, March2000, pp. 14-17.

40 Gregory G. Dess, Abdul M.A. Rasheed, Karin J. Mclaughlin and Richard L. Priem: “The NewCorporate Architecture”, The Academy of Management Executives, August, 1995, vol. 9, no. 3.

41 “The Third Age of Globalization: Enter the True Multinationals”, The Economist, The World in2004, December, 2003.

42 Donald N. Sull: “Revival of the Fittest”. (Boston, 2003: Harvard Business School Press, pp. 51-52.)

43 Forbes, March 15, 2004, p. 60.

44 Iñaki Abalos and Juan Herreros: “Tower and Office: From Modernist Theory to ContemporaryPractice”. (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 2003: The MIT Press.)

45 Dietmar Steiner: “Architecture and the Corporate Identity“, Ottagono, March, 1991, no. 98.

46 Anna Klingmann: “Architecture as Product”, Daidalos, 69/70, 1998-99.

47 Manuel Castells: “Information Technology and Global Capitalism”, in Will Hutton, Anthony Gid-dens, editors: “Global Capitalism”. (New York: 2000, The New Press.)

48 Matti K. Mäkinen: “Aikaa paikantamassa (Signs of the Times)”, Arkkitehti-lehti, the Finnish Archi-tectural Review, volume 2, 1998.

49 Kenneth Frampton, author, John Cava, editor: Studies in Tectonic Culture: “the Poetics of Con-struction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture”. (Cambridge, Massachusetts and Lon-don England, 1995: The MIT Press.)

50 Jerome A. Feldman, Pekka Himanen, Olli Leppänen, and Steven Weber: “Open Innovation Net-works: New Approaches to Community Organization and Problem Solving“. Helsinki: The FinnishNational Fund for Research and Development, 2004. Available online at http://www.sitra.fi/Re-port.

51 C.C. Sullivan: “A New Age of Officing”, Architecture, May 2005, pp. 64-72.

52 Peter MacKeith: “Heikkinen-Komonen’s McDonald’s-Finland Headquarters”, ArchitecturalRecord, March, 1999.

53 Harri Hautamaki: “Interview with the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the House“, Arkkitehti-lehti, The Finnish Architectural Review, volume 2, 2005.

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ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

HPY Building, Helsinki. Source: Suomen Rakennustaiteen Museo (SRM).

Pohjola Insurance Building, Helsinki. Source: SRM.

Enso-Gutzeit Headquarters, Helsinki. Source: SRM.

SOK, Helsinki. Source: SRM.

Sanoma House, Helsinki. Photographer: Jussi Tiainen.

Keilaniemi, Espoo. Source: Arkkitehti-lehti.

HPY Building, Helsinki. Source: SRM.

Pohjola Headquartes, Helsinki. Source: SRM.

Nokia House, Espoo. Photographer: Jussi Tiainen.

Oracle, Silicon Valley. Source: www.md5summer.org/Postcards/postcard43.html.

Union Carbide, Headquarters Office Interior, New York. Source: Reinhold Martin “The Organiza-tional Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space”. (Cambridge, Massachusetts andLondon, England, 2003: The MIT Press.)

Sonera Headquarters, Helsinki. Photographer: Jussi Tiainen.

Telenor, Oslo. Photographer: Tim Griffith, Courtesy of NBBJ Architects.

Nokia Research Center, Helsinki. Photographer: Jussi Tiainen.

High Tech Center, Helsinki. Photographer: Jussi Tiainen.

General Motors Tech Center, Detroit. Source: Reinhold Martin “The Organizational Complex: Ar-chitecture, Media, and Corporate Space”. (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 2003:The MIT Press.)

Seagram Headquarters, New York City. Source: Cohen, Jean-Louis. Mies van der Rohe, translatedby Maggie Rosengarten. London; New York: Spon, c.1996 p. 110.

Wal-mart, Lawrence, Kansas. Photographer: Joren Bass.

USA Today, McLean, Virginia. Source: www.kpf.com.

Ford - Rouge Truck Plant, Dearborn, Michigan. Copyright Ford Photographic. Courtesy of Wil-liam McDonough & Partners.

Nike-EMEA Headquarters, Hilversum. Source: Courtesy of William McDonough & Partners.

Volkswagen, Wolfsburg. Source: Courtesy of Volkswagen/Autostadt.

Deutsche Post Tower, Bonn. Source: Blaser, Werner. Post Tower: Helmut Jahn, Werner Sobek, Mat-thias Schuler. Basel; Boston: Birkhauser, c.2004 p. 19. Photo credits: Andreas Keller.

McDonald’s-Finland Headquarters, Helsinki. Source: SRM.

Metla House, Joensuu. Photographer: Jussi Tiainen.

University of Helsinki - Viikki Infocenter, Helsinki. Photographer: Jussi Tiainen.